In a society where it often seems like everyone is trying so desperately to have his or her voice heard, I am finding there is wisdom in being silent, waiting, and watching people’s body language. I don’t just pay attention to the speaker either, I try and notice the rest of the audience as well. How are they reacting to the information? And when I do finally speak up, I try to make my words concise yet impactful.
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Why are meals in restaurants always so big? After filling up on bread and salad, I never have room for an entire entrée. So I either need to intentionally leave half of it to take home, or split a meal with my wife. The latter option is our preference due to frugality.
I understand that restaurants make money by selling food, but the portion sizes are getting out of control. If you were making your own plate of food at home, would you ever include the amount that comes with a super-sized meal? Then why offer “single-serving” portions that large? It’s a little ridiculous. Sure, the bulk of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of consumers, but we cannot completely dismiss the restaurant’s culpability either. A bar can (and should) be held responsible for serving liquor to the point of intoxication if the patron subsequently causes a fatality on the drive home. Why look at food portions any differently? I’m not proposing legal action, but we do need to have a cultural shift that urges food establishments to practice social responsibility with regards to the portions they serve. “In Martin Seligman’s twenty-two-year study at the University of Pennsylvania, summarized in his book Learned Optimism, he determined that optimism is the most important quality you can develop for personal and professional success and happiness. Optimistic people seem to be more effective in almost every area of life.” *
It is little wonder that optimistic people find greater success than pessimists. No one wants to be around perpetually negative people—they ooze toxicity out of every pore. But people who always have a joyful outlook on life will continually be an encouragement to others, fostering a positive and successful environment. Naturally, you will never hear optimists complain about how bad they have it. Catch 22, I suppose. *Tracy, Brian. Eat That Frog! Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2007. Pages 86-87. It’s amusing to hear older people talk about 8-tracks and Elvis when he was alive. But then I get scared because in forty years I will be talking with my friends about CD’s and Michael Jackson, and my grandkids will be laughing at me. I can only imagine what they will get made fun of for reminiscing about in their geriatrics...
Hot dogs have recently become one of my favorite foods; probably in my top ten. Yes, I recognize that they are made from leftover animal parts. Yes, I know what the skin is made of. Yes, I know that they have virtually no nutritional value. And yes, I recognize that there is no food more shaped like a phallus.
But I can’t help it! There are few things more mouth-watering than a grilled, slightly charred, bursting-at-the-seams hot dog. I prefer it served on a lightly toasted bun, garnished with yellow mustard, mayo, relish, cheese, and diced onions. I believe that a task’s success is often determined before it is even begun. While setting expectations, the attitude we have sets the tone at which we move forward. We can either plan for the worst and hope for the best, or expect the worst and doubt the best will ever happen. Either way, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So why would we start something that we don’t believe will ever be successful? Answer: We shouldn’t. This is one of those “ice breaker” questions that I actually have an answer to. If I could have lunch with anyone, it would be a coin toss between Alex Trebek and Stephen Colbert. Each is witty and amusing. I would enjoy picking the brain of either one.
Better yet, I’d rather do lunch with both of them and sit back while they talk to each other. When you think of a “salesman,” what sort of imagery comes to mind? For me, I think of a pushy, overselling, poorly dressed car salesman that might be trying to rip me off. But this is the antithesis of good salesmanship.
There is only one rule that a salesperson has to follow to be effective: Figure out what the customer wants and give it to him. Simple, yet how many of us actually have salespeople that treat us that way? When my wife and I bought our iPhones, we had to go to two stores because we found out that the first store didn’t have enough in stock right before finalizing our purchase. The salesman at the first store tried to get us to upgrade from the free model to the $249 model. And tried to push the extended warranty. And wasn’t particularly helpful about answering our questions regarding protective cases. I had to get curt with him because he wasn’t listening to me, just pushing his wares the way he was programmed. The salesman at the second store was sensationally different. After I told him exactly what we wanted, he never once pushed an upgrade or extended warranty. He helped us find cases we liked, and even put our phones in them after transferring our info from the old phones. The difference was like night and day. The second salesman was better because he figured out what we wanted and gave it to us. Or maybe he was less pushy because we showed up a half hour before closing. In my teenage years, I decided to only say the words “I’m sorry” when I truly meant it, recognizing that I had made a mistake and owning up to the person I offended. I rarely apologize, because I (like most people) am neither quick nor eager to discover and admit that I was wrong. I’m not referring to the sympathetic, “I’m sorry you lost your cat,” use of the words, but a genuine apology for an intentional or unintentional offense.
People who know me well should understand that I don’t say those words lightly. However, I’ve noticed that a lot of people are quick to throw around the words, “I’m sorry,”in an almost backhanded fashion. I truly question a person’s ownership of the offense when it starts with, “I’m sorry, but” and then lists the reasons why the offense wasn’t his fault. Apologies need to be sweet and simple if the offense is to be forgiven, no excuses or justifications. Whenever I visit a museum or gallery, I jokingly make snide comments about the abstract expressionist art, the ones that look like some paint cans accidentally got knocked over onto a canvass, or a 3 year old went to town on a lump of clay. “I could’ve made that,” I say ironically to my friends.
But the fact is, I didn’t make that. Someone else did. He did it first and he did it better. I’m not an expert on art by any means, but I have to recognize the original genius of the first pioneers to step up and say that art is more than perfectly capturing a sunset or a bowl of fruit or a naked chubby woman. Art is an expression of creativity, and to look at a painting dismissively because “I could have done that” completely misses the point. Some art may be more technically impressive than others, but that does not mean it is more creative or expressive. |